


Kissed by Fire

by Egleriel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Tourney at the Vale
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-08-26 20:13:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16688185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Egleriel/pseuds/Egleriel
Summary: As the Tourney at the Gates of the Moon is marred first by tragedy and then by a Mountain Clan attack, Sansa finds a familiar face amid the confusion.





	1. A Dangerous Music

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I can't start a fic anywhere but the Winged Knight tourney in the Vale.

The noise. That was the part Sansa couldn’t get out of her head.

 

_Dum-de-dum-de-CRASH-de-CRUNCH-de-dum-de-dum_

 

The scene replayed itself in her mind’s eye, over and over, for what remained of the afternoon and into the evening. There’d been a musicality to it, in a morbid sort of way: a rhythm, insistent as a heartbeat.

 

_Dum-de-dum-de-CRASH-de-CRUNCH-de-dum-de-dum_

 

The drumming of the hoofbeats on frozen earth was a rumble she felt within her chest even as she breathed, the relentless thump counting in the beats until the crash of the lances cued a thousand gasps in wild harmony. The hoofbeats pounded on, uninterrupted. A second crash followed, almost an echo of the first, coming just a moment later. How much time had passed between those crashes, Sansa could not have guessed. All she knew was that the pause contained just enough time for a man to tumble from the saddle to the ground. He hit the tourney-field head-first with a hideous crunch of steel and _something that wasn’t steel_. Somewhere below the cacophony of shouts, there’d been a _clink_ of armour slumping to the ground as its owner lost consciousness, all set to the terrible percussion of unbroken hoofbeats.

 

_Dum-de-dum-de-CRASH-de-CRUNCH-de-dum-de-dum_

 

By the time his opponent wheeled his courser at the end of the list, attendants were already in motion. The Sunderland boy was the last man on the field to learn what he’d done.

 

“A shard pierced Ser Harrold’s eye,” Maester Coleman told her father later. “Such a wound is deadly serious by itself. The fall though…”

 

“Is it within your capability to heal him?” asked Littlefinger coldly. It sounded more like a demand than a question.

 

Coleman swallowed. “He lives yet.”

 

 _For now_ , thought Sansa.

 

_Dum-de-dum-de-CRASH-de-CRUNCH-de-dum-de-dum_

 

Just like that, all of her father’s plans were brought to nothing.Like as not, the heir to the Vale would be dead by morning.

 

 _Who is heir after him?_ It seemed inconceivable that she hadn’t wondered about that before now.

 

Handsome, reckless, brash Harry, half-dead in the maester’s chamber with a lance through his eye. It was a terrible shame. For all that she’d been courting Harrold Hardyng just last night, Alayne found it hard to muster the sort of sorrow that seemed to surround her in the hall. _I’ve known greater pain than one dead knight, however comely or eligible._ The coldness of it shocked her. Where was the well of grief that had once consumed Sansa Stark? Perhaps it had run dry.

 

There was still a part to play, though, so Alayne picked at her food for all to see, quieting her belly with wine instead. She repelled conversation with the fat tears in her eyes, thinking of Lady and Arya all alone and baby Rickon’s face in order to keep them there.

 

_Dum-de-dum-de-CRASH-de-CRUNCH-de-dum-de-dum_

 

Her fingers tapped the rhythm on the tabletop beside her. Mayhap it was the wine that made the hooves seem to thunder louder and louder all of a sudden.

 

At the end of the hall, men were leaping to their feet. Alayne could hear shouting outside, almost swallowed in the howling of the wind. “To arms, to arms!” some voices were calling.

 

Others cried, “Wildings!”


	2. A Sense of Utility

Alayne rose from her seat in alarm, finding her feet a little less steady than she was used to. How many cups of wine had she put away? She wiped her eating-knife on a napkin and stowed it in its pouch, but left the fastenings free in case she needed steel in her hand.

 

Sansa Stark wouldn’t have known how to defend herself. Alayne Stone meant to try, at least.

 

There was no mistaking the sound of riders now.  At the high table, Nestor Royce was rounding up women and nobles, shouting instructions to his retainers. Fighting men of every description were streaming by in various states of readiness. Alayne could see no sign of her father.

_There is no place for me here,_ she realised.

 

Just one person at the Gates of the Moon might have need of her now. The most helpless, the most easily missed.  He would be terrified in all this confusion – if he wasn’t sleeping too deeply to miss it all.

 

Sansa slipped out through a side-door and dashed through the maze of servants’ corridors below the keep. Her stomach lurched unpleasantly with every corner and she paused at the bottom of the tower stair to compose herself, tucked into a dark niche where she was easily missed.  Ahead, the door banged open with every fresh blast of wind. The draught’s icy tendrils coiled around her ankles with each gust.  


_Sweetrobin_ , Sansa reminded herself.

 

Sansa pulled her cloak about her and stepped into courtyard. The earth squelched beneath her boots, churned to filth by too much footfall, but she ploughed onwards. The sounds of fighting echoed from the other side of the keep, the stout walls of the bailey sealing Sansa away from the battle. She passed the upper kitchen and the granary, seeing the maester’s quarters ahead lit by candles. Sansa scarcely had time to make out the silhouette of Wallace Waynwood before she was jerked backwards into one of the buildings behind.

 

Gritting her teeth, Sansa tugged her eating-knife from its pouch. She hadn’t really decided what to do with it when her assailant dropped her unceremoniously to the floor.

 

“Where the fuck are you going?” he hissed.

 

Sansa’s head snapped up; her grip on the knife tightened. A braver girl – a proper bastard – would rush him now, but her wits had drained from her at the sound of that voice. “Do I know you, ser?” It was meant to sound stern and cold, but all that emerged was a reedy whisper.

 

The man paused, his huge bulk blotting out most of the light from the night sky. Some of the tension seemed to leave him, and he turned his face towards the comparative light of the window.

 

“Enough to know that I’m no ser,” he said hoarsely.

 

It was a difficult face to forget. Alayne Stone had never known it, but it haunted Sansa Stark’s dreams from time to time – especially after she was told of his death.

 

“The last time I saw you,” said Sansa slowly, “I was in a castle under attack. You were covered in blood. You said you were leaving.”

 

“I wanted you to come with me,” said the Hound simply.

 

“That’s what I thought.”

 

“Are you going to make me beg for forgiveness?”

 

“Are you?” Sansa retorted boldly.

 

Sandor Clegane took a step closer. Sansa stood her ground, now close enough to see the wildness in his eyes. “We don’t have fucking _time_ for this. You didn’t deserve to be a prisoner of Joffrey, or Cersei, or Stannis and his damned fire-witch. You don’t deserve whatever the fuck Littlefinger brought you here for.”

 

“So… you’re offering to take me away? Where would we go? Why now?”

 

Something softened in the Hound’s expression. “It took some time to find you. I didn’t expect to have to slip in during a bloody tourney, though it likely made things easier. Except there’s a mountain clan attacking, too, and obviously that means you’re off wandering the castle. Some things never fucking change.”

 

“I was going to find my cousin.” Clegane failed to react. “Robert Arryn. The Lord of the Vale.”

 

“Seven hells,” he groaned.

 

Sansa thought for a moment, fumbling her knife away. She felt the Hound’s eyes following her pale hands in the darkness.

 

_The Waynwoods are in there with the maester. Keeping Harry safe means protecting Sweetrobin too, and they'll all do a better job of it than I can._

 

“I suppose there’s not much point now,” she sighed. Sansa drew herself up to her full height, barely bringing her eyes level with the Hound’s chest. “Do you have some sort of a plan?”


	3. Blessed Escape

Sansa clutched Clegane’s hand, following at a near-run to keep up with his brisk strides.

 

“Left here, then mind the step,” she directed quietly.

 

The castle seemed strangely new to her, as if she was seeing it through new eyes. _Sansa’s eyes_. The pressures and pretences that had shaped Alayne’s world were suddenly shattered, feeling almost trivial to her now.

 

“Alayne!” called a Royce man-at-arms as they passed the armoury. Sansa met his eyes briefly and with no sign of recognition, never breaking stride. He was saying something about Alayne’s father when Sansa stepped into the gale outside.

 

Sansa stood sentinel as Clegane readied his enormous courser. A young man in torn mail staggered into the stalls while she watched, blood sheeting from a gash on his temple. He slumped against the wall before even noticing they were there.

 

Sleet began to spatter the cobbles outside. Within moments, a muddy slush was collecting in the gullies between the stones, like the gore that clogged the courtyard at the Tower of the Hand the day her father was arrested. The killing hadn’t stopped since that day.

 

“Here,” grunted the Hound.

 

A huge, heavy fur was dumped on her shoulders; then, for the second time that evening, Sansa found herself being lifted bodily from where she stood. Clegane bundled her onto the back of his mount, checked the saddlebags one last time, then climbed jerkily into position himself.

 

“Hold tight,” he barked, and they were off.

 

Escaping the Gates of the Moon proved straightforward enough, given the circumstances. Sansa clung on for dear life as incredible scenes unfolded around her. Despite squinting against the ice and wind, she made out huge men from Runestone facing down wild men with axes. Atop the hall, a group of kitchen girls tried (unsuccessfully) to string bows in the wet. Farther off in the gloom, a full cavalry battle seemed to be underway on the tourney ground.

 

They weaved between outbuildings and through clumps of trees to avoid the worst of the fighting, until they entered one copse that didn’t seem to have any end. They rode until the sleet warmed to freezing rain, until the wind slackened, until the moon began to peek free from the clouds. Sansa ached with the need to make water and her legs were afire from the ride. The wet fur itched and stank in equal measure. Worst of all, her hunger was starting to reassert itself, and Sansa had a terrible suspicion that this might be an interminable dream from which she couldn’t wake.

 

Just when Sansa had summoned the nerve to thump Clegane’s back for attention, they pulled up short.

 

“We can rest here,” he rasped, sounding even more hoarse than usual.

 

The cottage was stone-built with a roof of rotting timber tiles, but if it promised the slightest chance of warmth and sleep then it was a finer lodging than any featherbed that Petyr could offer.

 

At her elbow, Clegane was busy untying rolls from his saddle while the horse snorted. The ground seemed to shift beneath Sansa’s feet. Her stomach lurched unexpectedly, earning Sansa a frown from Clegane.

 

By way of explanation, she doubled over and vomited purple into the mud.


	4. Cursed Escape

The wooden beam under her hand felt almost slimy with the cold and damp, but she clung to it for dear life. With her eyes screwed shut, the world felt as though it was spinning even faster.

 

“I won’t say I wasn’t surprised by how much wine you put away,” the Hound grunted above her. “I’ve given it up myself.”

 

A sudden coolness at Sansa’s back told her Clegane had led his horse away to the lean-to stable she’d noticed earlier. Not long after that, a large hand landed softly on her arm.

 

“Come on, girl. I didn’t drag you through a battle just to let you freeze to death. Inside, easy does it.”

 

Sansa allowed herself to open her eyes a crack.

 

“One foot after the other,” said the Hound, almost gently. She kept her gaze low, surprised by how heavy her boots seemed to be.

 

 

The main room of the cottage was warmer than it had any right to be on such a bleak night. From what she could make out in the darkness, it seemed every bit as run-down as it had looked from the outside, with dirty straw for flooring and little furniture. A fire had burned down to embers in the grate.A few feet away from it stood a narrow pallet topped with a greasy fur.

 

“Is… is there a chamberpot?” she asked.

 

The Hound nodded towards a wicker partition at the end of the room, then crossed towards the fireplace with the preternatural grace Sansa had forgotten until now. In one swift - almost careless - motion, he unfurled one of the bedrolls on the pallet before taking a knee at the hearth.

 

“You can rest here,” he said over his shoulder after she emerged, though there was something strangely awkward about his movement. Sansa took the suggestion gratefully.

 

Lying back, she began to take stock. Her mouth tasted foul, and her head felt fouler - yet emptying her stomach did seem to have done her some good. Her thighs ached from the ride; her skin itched from the assault of sleet and cold air and the musty smell of damp fur made for an unwelcome bedfellow. For all that, though, she was _free_. 

 

Somewhere above the top of her head, Clegane managed to nurse the fire back to life. Licks of yellow light threw the man’s huge shadow across the room. He hadn’t moved.

 

Sansa squirmed to get a glimpse of him, but when her belly churned in rebellion she settled for watching his shadow instead.

 

“Are you all right?” asked Sansa.

 

His hulking form remained motionless, though the firelight streaked and stretched across the ceiling. Then, all at once, he stood and hefted something from the corner of the room. He set up a makeshift bed of his own; Sansa noticed that it stood between her and the door.

 

Clegane unbuckled his sword-belt and laid his sheath next to his pallet. It wasn’t until he sat heavily amidst his own furs that he made to answer.

 

“We’ll start the ride for Gulltown on the morrow. From there we’ll take ship to the Wall. White Harbor, if Eastwatch isn’t an option. I’ll be all right once we get the Vale at our backs.”

 

The questions ached at the tip of Sansa’s tongue: how long had he been at the Gates of the Moon? Why had he decided to look for her? How had he found this cottage? Why was he so anxious to bring her north? She sensed, however, that the Hound was only in the mood for the simplest of answers. All she could think of to say was, “Thank you.”

 

 

When Sansa woke again, the Hound was on his feet with sword drawn.

 

Someone pounded on the door. “Open up, by the Seven,” a man shouted. “I know you’re in there!”

 

Sansa scrambled to her feet, but Clegane raised a hand behind him. She stilled.

 

“The mountain clans hold the roads. Let me in, for fuck’s sake!”

 

Agile as a shadowcat, Clegane moved to the door. With his off-hand, he unbarred the door as quietly as he could under the visitor’s knocks. He paused to wait for a gap, then tore the door open, seized the visitor and ran him through on the threshold. Horror filled Sansa. _Don’t look at his face,_ she told herself sternly. It made no matter who he was: his shouting would have got them both killed if there were clansmen on his heels. Even if Alayne had by some chance known him, Sansa owed it to herself to keep him a tragic stranger.

 

Clegane watched the man closely until he died, then hefted his body into the heavy bushes next to the door. Sansa held the door open to readmit him. With bile rising in her throat, she said a rapid prayer for the unlucky petitioner before shutting the door.

 

But it seemed the man’s ill-fortune had failed to die with him. Before Sansa could shut the door completely, a company of armoured horsemen had appeared in the laneway. She barred the door and pressed her back against it, panic rising unchecked as it had done so many times already this night. Eyes wild, she stared at her companion, who was wiping his sword clean with a rag. She gasped, “Sandor.”


	5. Spoils of War

In a deep corner of her mind, Sansa wailed at the unfairness of it. Every moment she spent bound upon the mountain man’s horse was a moment she drew closer to her new prison. Her captor’s hand rested on the reins in front of her; though she could see little in the darkness, she felt – and _smelled_ – sticky blood coating his mailed arm whenever he moved.

From time to time, the wildling shifted in his seat and used his free hand to squeeze her breasts. At least, that’s what Sansa assumed he was trying to do; she doubted he could feel anything at all save layer upon layer of fur. It did not speak well of the fate that awaited her. Between half-hearted assaults, her head pounded in pain and hunger tore her belly, but still Sansa knew she was faring better than Sandor. The man had been bound hand and foot and slung over the back of another horse like a sack of grain. It was ignominious treatment for a man Sansa knew to be one of the finest warriors in the land.

_My saviour, almost._

It was the sort of adventure that made it into songs, except in songs the hero would be handsome and gracious, and the maid would be witty and well-loved, and nobody would vomit and occasionally the heroes would get a lucky break. Any song about Sansa seemed destined to be a tragedy.

 

The moon was setting when the mountain men drew to a halt. Despite doing her best to track their direction by the silhouettes of the peaks around them, Sansa was hopelessly lost. The trails they’d taken led through glens Sansa had never visited; the mountains around them looked completely unfamiliar in the pre-dawn dark.

They passed through a wooden palisade lit with burning torches and Sansa found herself assailed from all directions by noise, light, and the stink of bodies. Drums were beating wildly somewhere within the camp, accompanying drunken-sounding singing. Sansa shivered. She seemed to be the only woman within the walls.

A large round hut, log-built, stood towards the back of the encampment. A streamer of smoke drifted up against the cliff-face from a hole in the top of its conical roof. It was here that they dismounted – or at least, that they left the horses. Sansa had time to see Sandor being dumped into the muck before her guard pulled her over his shoulder.

                                                                                                                          

These men seemed to speak the Common Tongue, but their heavy accents and odd cadence made it hard for Sansa to follow their speech. She turned her nose into the wildman’s cloak, inhaling the odour of damp wool in preference to the man’s sweat-and-blood stink.

The next surface she struck was a lumpy floor made of straw matting. The air around her felt heavy with smoke: Sansa guessed that they were in the building she’d seen before.

“Where?” asked a man’s voice in the darkness.

“Cutter’s cottage,” grunted her chaperone. His voice was almost as raspy as Sandor’s. “Near the Goat Falls.”

Sansa chanced a look deeper into the room. In the very centre crackled a fire pit. Twin braziers provided most of the light, though that wasn’t saying much: dimly, Sansa could make out a row of women mending pieces of leather armour. All attention seemed to be focussed on the man nearest the fire. Sansa knew this situation, in a different place and a different time.

 _Cast to the floor, awaiting the young lord’s mercy,_ she reflected grimly.

For the man in the centre of the room _was_ young – perhaps no older than Robb or Jon. There was something familiar about him, too, that Sansa couldn’t put her finger on. The fire illuminated a beaked nose, dark hair and a missing left eye-

 

“I have seen this one before,” growled the wildling lord. Sansa stiffened, keeping her gaze low as he approached. “You were at the court of the lion lords.”

Slowly, demurely, Sansa lifted her eyes again – and found that the one-eyed man wasn’t speaking to her at all, but to Sandor. 

The two men eyed one another; against all reason, Sandor was clambering to his feet to face the clan-lord. Even the clumsiness induced by his bonds did little to lessen the impact of the Hound’s height and breadth. Still, the young lord was not much shorter, although slenderer by far.

The hair stood up on the back of Sansa’s neck. _Mother above, don’t let them hurt him,_ she prayed.

“I don’t serve them any more,” said the Hound bluntly. 

For the first time, the wildling looked straight at Sansa. “This girl was under the halfman’s protection.”

Clegane’s fists clenched. “Now she’s under mine.”

The lordling’s brow furrowed. “You stole this woman?”

An insane impulse to laugh bubbled up in Sansa, such that she had to cover the sound with a cough. Shooting her a pained sort of look, Sandor grumbled, “She wasn’t totally unwilling.”

Nodding pensively, the young lord took a moment to look them both up and down.

“And now you both belong to me. Still, I will offer you this deal. The Burned Men need more who can fight, not more who can serve. The lions considered the Hound to be one of their best fighters. You will help us fight our winter war, and when the spring comes you and your woman can go free.”

Sandor was breathing hard through his nose. “If I say no?”

 

The young man’s silence chilled Sansa as much as any of Joffrey’s threats. Peeling his gaze from Clegane, he turned and stalked back to the fire-pit.

Sansa cried out when the guard tugged her roughly to her feet. “Come. Timett son of Timett will hear your answer on the morrow.”


End file.
